Despite advances in health and safety requirements for residential buildings, for office buildings and for other multi-story facilities, one of the leading causes of health and safety hazard in the event of fire continues to be smoke inhalation. Lack of oxygen and the presence of noxious fumes caused by fire are additional hazards that threaten the health and lives of those trapped within burning buildings. A variety of inventions have been devised to attempt to eliminate the hazards of smoke inhalation, the presence of combustible gases, noxious fumes and the like, but these inventions do not avail a versatile, effective built-in system that can be implemented simply and quickly to help get air to persons or animals trapped within a burning building.
For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,703,808, issued to O'Donnell there is disclosed a smoke eliminator for removing smoke, heat and combustion gases from a burning structure. This device is comprised of a rigid tube having an adapter attached to one end and a fog nozzle attached to its other end. The adapter allows the device to be connected to a conventional fire hose at its base end. It is designed primarily for use by firefighters, with the intention that a firefighter insert the device into the window space of the burning building to aspirate smoke, heat and gases from the building while creating a fog curtain outside of the window to protect adjacent buildings or firefighters working outside of the burning building. This invention is not designed to get air to those trapped within the burning building.
Another invention, U.S. Pat. No. 4,380,187, issued to Wicks is designed specifically for providing air to persons entrapped within a burning building. This invention teaches a method and system for utilizing existing water pipes to feed air to trapped occupants. An actuator connected to a number of fire sensors within the building actuates a source of pressurized air through existing hot and cold water pipes upon detecting a fire. This air jet stream blasts existing water through the pipes, then provides an atmosphere of air at slightly elevated pressure in a pre-determined room, such as a bathroom. The presumed effect of this system is to provide air to the trapped inhabitants and to exclude smoke by the air pressure differential. The problem with this system is that it presumes the protected room will be available to those trapped within the burning building. This may not always be the case. Furthermore, rooms such as bathrooms frequently are not constructed near the outside wall of multi-story, multi-unit buildings, thereby drawing trapped inhabitants away from building exteriors where fire rescue teams might be likely to access the trapped inhabitant more easily.
Numerous other devices and systems attempt to address fire ventilation hazards by smoke evacuation systems, such as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,178,581 issued to Del Monte ("Smoke Evacuation System"), 4,054,084 issued to Palmer ("Fire and Smoke Free System For High Rise Building Stairways"), 4,944,216 issued to McCutcher ("Building Emergency Exhaust Fan System") and 4,928,583 issued to Taylor, et al. ("Air Flow System"), as well as Japanese Patent No. 2-143042 issued to Shinjaro Miyahara ("Fire-Preventative Smoke-Discharging Device"). However, these systems and devices again are designed to systematically remove smoke, heat and noxious fumes caused by fire within a burning building as opposed to feeding air to particular inhabitants trapped within a burning building.
One object of the present invention therefore is to provide a built-in system for providing air to those trapped within a burning building.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a built-in system for providing air to those trapped within a burning building which is easy to use and easy to install.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a dual use built-in system for providing air and communication access simultaneously to those trapped within a burning building.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a system for providing air to those trapped within a burning building which is easy to manufacture and install, utilizing existing building interior spaces located between exterior building walls and interior building walls to thread life-saving air and communication channels.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a system for supplying air to those trapped within a burning building which utilizes existing building interior spaces located between exterior building walls and interior building walls to thread life-saving air and communication channels in multi-story, multi-unit buildings.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a system for feeding air to those trapped within a burning building which puts the user in the position to be rescued more readily by firefighters or rescue team members by bringing the inhabitant closer to a building exterior.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a versatile built-in system for supplying air to those trapped within a burning building by including adaptations for dependent users such as infants and pets.
Numerous other advantages and features of the invention will become readily apparent from the detailed description of the preferred and alternative embodiments of the invention, from the claims, and from the accompanying drawings, in which like numerals are employed to designate like parts throughout.